評論
打印
Science & Technology
科技版塊
The psychology of justice
公平的心理學
First impressions
第一印象
Eyewitness evidence is more reliable than thought
目擊者的證據比想象的更可靠
The “satanic panic” that swept through America in the 1980s and 1990s held that thousands of ordinary people up and down the country were secretly members of devil-worshipping cults which were abusing, raping and murdering children on an industrial scale.
20世紀80年代和90年代席卷美國的“撒旦恐慌”認為，全國上下數以千計的普通人是崇拜魔鬼邪教的秘密成員，這些邪教以工業規模虐待、強奸和謀殺兒童。
Alleged victims made detailed allegations, often after therapy designed to “recover” memories that had supposedly been buried in the aftermath of trauma.
所謂的受害者往往在接受了旨在“恢復”創傷后被埋藏的記憶的治療后，提出了詳細的指控。
Many people went to prison.
很多人進了監獄。
None of it was true.
這一切都不是真的。
One after-effect of the panic was to cement in the minds of both the public and the justice system the idea that eyewitness testimony is unreliable.
恐慌的一個后遺癥是：在公眾和司法系統看來，目擊者證詞是不可靠的。
That fitted with experiments by psychologists such as Elizabeth Loftus, which demonstrated just how malleable memories can be.
這與伊麗莎白·洛夫圖斯等心理學家的實驗相吻合，這些實驗證明了記憶可塑性的強大。
The Innocence Project, an American charity, examined 375 cases of wrongful conviction for all sorts of crimes, and found misidentification of suspects by witnesses was a factor in around 70% of them.
美國慈善機構“清白計劃”審查了375起各種罪行的誤判案件，發現其中70%的誤判都是由于證人對嫌疑人的誤認。
But at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, John Wixted, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, argued that this institutional distrust has gone too far.
但在美國科學促進會的年度會議上，加州大學圣地亞哥分校的心理學家約翰·威克斯特表示，這種制度性不信任太過分了。
Eyewitness memories, he said, can in fact be very reliable—if they are tested in the right circumstances.
他說，如果在正確的環境下進行測試的話，目擊者的記憶實際上可以非常可靠。
The key to reliability, said Dr Wixted, is the confidence of witnesses in their assessments.
威克斯特博士說，可靠性的關鍵在于證人對其評估的信心。
Experiments suggest that when witnesses to a simulated crime are confident of having identified the suspect in a later photo line-up, they are almost always correct.
實驗表明，模擬犯罪中，目擊者確信在隨后的照片中認出了嫌疑人時，他們幾乎總是正確的。
Similarly, if they are sure the suspect is not present, that is likely to be right too.
同樣，如果他們確定嫌疑人沒有出現，這也很可能是正確的。
Only when a witness is unsure does a risk of misidentification arise.
只有當目擊者不確定時，才會出現誤認的風險。
A field study conducted in 2016 by Houston’s police came to similar conclusions.
休斯頓警方在2016年進行的一項實地研究也得出了類似的結論。
The problem is that this confidence is trustworthy only the first time the question is asked.
問題是，這種信心只有在第一次提問時才值得信任。
One of the unavoidable frustrations of quantum mechanics is that measuring a particle’s position or energy irretrievably alters it.
量子力學一個不可避免的問題是，測量粒子的位置或能量會不可逆轉地改變它。
Something similar, said Dr Wixted, happens with memories.
威克斯特博士說，類似的情況也會發生在記憶中。
The very act of testing them contaminates every other test that comes after.
測試它們的行為本身就影響了隨后進行的所有其他測試。
Assessing people’s faces for a possible match, for example, lodges them in a witness’s memory.
例如，通過評估人們的面孔來尋找可能的匹配，就能將他們保存在目擊者的記憶中。
Once that has happened, anything from police encouragement to the high-pressure environment of a courtroom can twist subsequent attempts at recollection.
一旦這種情況發生，從警察的鼓勵到法庭的高壓環境，任何事情都可能扭曲隨后的回憶嘗試。
Dr Wixted drew a comparison with evidence such as dna samples.
威克斯特博士將其與DNA樣本等證據進行了比較。
Improper handling can contaminate these.
處理不當可能會污染這些。
That does not mean dna tests are inherently unreliable, but it does mean the technology must be used carefully.
這并不意味著DNA測試本身不可靠，但它確實意味著這項技術必須謹慎使用。
The same, he says, is true of witnesses.
他說，目擊者也是如此。
The answer, as he and Dr Loftus argue in a recently published paper, is to test a witness’s memory as fairly as possible, and—crucially—to do so only once.
正如他和洛夫特斯博士在最近發表的一篇論文中指出的那樣，要盡可能公平地測試證人的記憶，而且至關重要的是，只測試一次。
Decades after the Satanic panic, the matter remains important.
在撒旦恐慌過去幾十年后，這件事仍然很重要。
Dr Wixted cited the case of Charles Don Flores, a prisoner awaiting execution for a murder committed in 1998.
威克斯特博士引用了查爾斯·唐·弗洛雷斯的案例，他是一名因1998年犯下謀殺罪而等待處決的囚犯。
Initially, when shown a line-up that included Mr Flores, a crucial witness said none of the people matched her recollection.
最初，當展示包括弗洛雷斯在內的名單時，一名關鍵證人表示，沒有一個人與她的記憶相匹配。
(She had recalled a white man with long hair.
(她回憶起一個留著長發的白人男子。
Mr Flores is of Latin American extraction, and had short hair then.)
弗洛雷斯有拉美血統，當時留著短發。
By the time the case came to trial a year later, she had changed her mind, and Mr Flores was convicted.
一年后案件開庭審理時，她改變了主意，弗洛雷斯先生被判有罪。
His appeal on the basis of the witness’s change of mind has been denied.
他以證人改變主意為由提出的上訴已被駁回。
Dr Wixted, however, suggests she was likely to have been right the first time and wrong the second.
然而，威克斯特博士認為，她很可能第一次是對的，第二次是錯的。
